I know I use it differently. I'm lazy. I don't like to type URLs for site I visit several times a day, or open and close tabs and windows. Typically I have 3 windows open with 15 or more tabs open in each window at all times. I typically keep the notebook running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I can open SM and have all three windows and all tabs available right away.

I run Win 7 HP, SP1 64Bit with 8GB RAM and a 160GB SSD

It does what I need and performs well for the most part.

However ...... SM's well known RAM creep or memory leak as some have called it over the years gradually consumes up to 40 or 50% of the RAM. This of course slows things down and requires closing and restarting SM about every day or two. Minor headache I know, but I sure wish there was some other way to force it to release the RAM.

Nearly all of the time, the Session Manager does the job and makes this process fairly quick. But there are times when it takes longer. Most of the time, everything opens as it should (I tick 'Work Offline" both before closing and reopening from the profile window to make sure the tabs don't all try to populate at once). But there are times when they don't and the Restore Session page shows up. Clicking that works and takes me back to where I left off.

I know most people probably don't have this many tabs open at all times, but like I said, I'm lazy.

So, is there any other way to release RAM? I've tried a couple of Add-Ons that claim to do so, but without results.

Typically I have 3 windows open with 15 or more tabs open in each window at all times.

That's not a lot, particularly.

SM's well known RAM creep or memory leak

Well known? To whom?Does FF (or some other browser) perform better in the same situation?

consumes up to 40 or 50% of the RAM

So is that ~4 GB of RAM?x64 version of SeaMonkey may provide some benefit.(x64, for Windows, is only available from "other parties".)

Nearly all of the time

Not going to hurt to periodically make backups of sessionstore.json (or more generally, your Profile).

is there any other way to release RAM? I've tried a couple of Add-Ons that claim to do so, but without results.

about:memory exists, but I've never found it (or anything else) to have any material, lasting effect of memory related issues.

(This is a newer build [not by me, but Akalla], 2.49.1, rather then 2.48, viewtopic.php?p=14766347#p14766347. Backup first. Oh, & its a .7z rather then a .exe installer. Simply extract, somewhere, & run.)

Have never used FF. Sometimes use Opera but stopped updating that at V10, the last of the original type. Try to avoid IE or others. I've used this family of browsers since Netscape. Just kind of stayed with it. Creature of habit I guess.

Will look into the 64B options but don't want problems with future upgrades or migrations.

I am also lazy, but I use bookmarks. Since I do not keep the browser or the computer running all the time, and I do not use the same sites all the time, I use bookmarks (nicely categorized, of course) to have an easy way to access all the sites I want.

Wish You Were Here wrote:RAM creep or memory leak as some have called it over the years gradually consumes up to 40 or 50% of the RAM.

I experience some serious RAM creep as well (Win10Pro 64bit), which seems to have gotten worse over time. While I don't have as many windows or tabs open as you (usually Mail-News plus 2 browser windows, 6-8 tabs each), after a few hours of running SM is eating up over 2GB of memory, which it doesn't release after browser windows or tabs are closed and only M-N is left open. The result is slowed response time and some significant keyboard delays. Shutting SM down and restarting is the only way to make it zippy again.

I wasn't aware of about:memory. I'll have to play with it and see if it can improve anything.

Absolutely - RAM/memory creep is a "thing" with SM, although it may not be obvious in the start-browse-a-few-pages-and-shutdown use case...

And, as therube mentions, one of the chief perceived benefits for me of the 64-bit builds (Adrian's 2.51 in my case) is the increased stability and performance in the face of said creep (which I mention pretty much every time the subject of 64-bit builds surfaces).

OK, what happened to my Session Manager? When i shut down a little while ago, I did not get the dialog asking if I wanted to save the session or not. On restart, it opened all of the windows and tabs fine, but now I don't see 'Session Manager' listed in any of the menu options. If I turned it off somehow, where do I need to go to turn it on again?

Yes ... http://sessionmanager.mozdev.org/ ... it's one of the most useful add-ons available IMO, especially if the browser crashes whenyou have quite a lot of tabs and/or windows open. Also lets you reopen previous browser sessions whether you've had a crash or not.

I found it most useful when I only had 3GB of RAM on my main PC, and my SeaMonkey installation was quite unstable as a result.

I have noticed the same problem with SM since around version 2.46, which I used for quite some time until recently directly jumping to version 2.49.1. The severity of the problem in 2.49.1 seems to be slightly reduced but I often have to look at the Windows task manager to see how much RAM that SM is consuming. Also, some web pages that have Flash banners or side content can really suck up RAM under SM browser as well. If I notice that PLUG-IN-CONTAINER.EXE is running in Windows task manger this usually indicates there is some Flash or other hidden object in the browser tabs I have open that is sucking up RAM. I have frequently killed the PLUG-IN-CONTAINER process because of this reason, if any video content that is being displayed on pages I have open, is not Flash. After killing this plug-in-container process, sometimes the RAM consumption starts to go down, but it can come back again if the page where the Flash content was killed, reloads that Flash content. It's like swatting flies. I have frequently had to restart SM to fully recover sucked up RAM resources when I start to notice the RAM consumption getting too high. I close the browser and let it save the multiple tabs open so that when restarting SM, the same tabs re-open but the browser will be using much less RAM. Otherwise, it is possible for the entire system to be brought to its knees.

As a start, disable Flash, or at least set it to Ask.I find the need for Flash becoming rarer & rarer. Maybe you can (mostly) do away with it too.

Other (picture) animations can be "heavy" too.You can set them to play once, or disable altogether.(But then there are times you might actually want to see the content, & may not even realize it is there.)